Monday, 16 April 2012

Exhaustion

I know exactly how the rider of Sunnyhillboy - who came second in Saturday’s Grand National – must feel right now.

For sportsmen, there’s a well trodden paddock of self-analysis where narrowly missing success amounts to little more than complete failure – a place where it’s little better to almost succeed than not to have taken part at all. It’s ground I’ve trodden myself this weekend.

True to my pledge, 270 KTA did make it to Penzance this weekend, and crucially, did make it back home again; but we didn’t take part in the running day.

A mysterious tick developed en-route and soon grew into a deafening bark which, frankly, worried the life out of me. It turned out to be coming from the exhaust manifold, which had worked itself loose and consequently blown its gasket.

Although it didn’t render our friend immobile, it made the ride sufficiently uncomfortable that I wasn’t prepared to subject passengers to the noise - or, selfishly perhaps, her driver to the shame of taking people out on a vehicle that clearly wasn’t right. So I decided she should spend the day resting at Long Rock depot in Penzance. We nearly tasted success.

Let me tell you, it’s thoroughly depressing and actually quite lonely when something like this goes wrong. There’s a feeling of letting the side down, of being a bad person; it must be like your child throwing up during the school nativity play. (Incidentally, I did that as a child, too – maybe I am a bad person?)

For me, the nadir of the weekend was watching all the other buses around 270 KTA peeling away, one by one, disappearing for a day of adventure in West Cornwall. There we were in sudden silence (ironic, given the problem), and there our friend would remain.

As it happens, I had a good day riding around on everybody else’s buses. But it wasn’t quite the reward I’d hoped for after weeks of late nights trying to get 270 KTA ready for her stint. I'm still quite sore about it.

But look. This was not a complete failure. By my reckoning, the 200 mile round trip to Penzance was the longest journey 270 KTA has completed in my entire lifetime – the last time she covered a distance like this was probably when she travelled west from Sussex in 1981. I was busy being born. Since then she’s not really been fit to complete a journey like this, until now.

It’s easy to forget that 270 KTA is only now emerging from years of neglect – of course we’ll have problems. And besides, all the issues I’ve been working so hard to fix over the last few weeks and months appear to have gone. Despite the noise, she actually performed well.

To celebrate all the above, I took 270 KTA for a lap of honour… well, perhaps not honour… but a lap of Penzance Bus Station at the very end of Sunday, so that at least it felt like we’d been able to join in.

These pictures prove we made it. To me, it was worth the effort just for them.

Bloody deafening, though…

(Next weekend 270 KTA is expected as a guest of honour at a friend’s wedding down the road in Plymouth. So this week I have the task of sealing up the manifold enough to quash the worst of the noise. Then, it’s the fiddly job of removing the manifold and changing the gasket completely; it’ll be a busy few weeks at 270 KTA HQ.)

2 comments:

Oh the joys of bus preservation. The public just don't get to see the hours of frustration and the necessary 'make do and mend' that goes on behind the scenes to get our 'loved ones' out on the road for their enjoyment.

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This blog is an ongoing chronicle of the adventures I share with my preserved 1962 Bristol SUL4A coach.

Here you'll find tales aplenty of the joy and strife associated with keeping alive a 55 year old vehicle.

Our adventures have been many and varied over the past seven years. The blog’s archive contains rich and colourful stories of success and failure that have typified life with 270 KTA so far; stories of man and machine in perfect harmony, briefly but sometimes brutally interrupted by the odd discordant note.

This blog now has a 'brother' in BDV252C.co.uk, which follows the long-term restoration of my 1965 Bristol SUL bus. To balance the tales of woe and elation in each story, I recommend you follow the two blogs in equal measure!

David Sheppard, 2018

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About 270 KTA

270 KTA (420) is a 1962 Bristol SUL4A coach, one of 36 such coaches built for Western National and Southern National for use in the West of England. They were predominantly for local tours but also provided relief on express services to London and the North during busy periods.

Bristol's SU-type was a narrow, lightweight chassis designed specifically for use in rural areas. As well as the South West, SU coaches found their way to Wales, with bus-bodied counterparts in Yorkshire, the Isle of Wight and parts of the Home Counties.

420 has a 33-seat body built by Eastern Coachworks of Lowestoft and a 4-cylinder Albion EN250H diesel engine, mounted horizontally underfloor and coupled to a David Brown 5-speed gearbox.

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A BRIEF HISTORY

420 worked from Western National's Kingsbridge depot when new, where it was to be pride of the fleet for six years. With the decline in local coach tours it moved to Taunton where, along with most other SU coaches, alterations were made to enable use on local bus routes.

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Moving to Trowbridge depot in 1968, it was something of a oddity in Wiltshire and as such was very well photographed during its stay. When the Trowbridge operation was transferred away from Western National, 420 was returned to Taunton, narrowly missing transfer to the Bristol Omnibus fleet. (Or did it?)

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420 was renumbered 1220 in June 1971 and, following a spell at Bridgwater depot, was transferred to the Devon General fleet. Accordingly, it received poppy red and white livery - the only SUL coach to be so treated. It was also the only one of its batch to be fully downgraded to bus configuration, with the removal of headrests and the addition of extra seats.

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Withdrawn from Weymouth depot (still red), '1220' later worked as a school bus in Sussex, before returning to the West to join the fleet of Willis, Bodmin. It was donated to the Western National Preservation Group in 1995, and remained with them for several years, although its poor mechanical state meant it was little used.

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Purchased by me in December 2009, it was returned to the road in 2011 after major mechanical attention. A rolling programme of restoration has continued while allowing 420 to be used at events and enjoyed by others. By fluke or fate, it now lives just a few miles away from its original home in Kingsbridge and is part of a family fleet of five preserved Bristol vehicles.

270 KTA's Owner and Scribe

David Sheppard lives in the South West of England. He has been involved in bus and coach preservation for more than 25 years, having helped his father to restore their first bus at the age of seven.

David is a trustee and director of the Thames Valley & Great Western Omnibus Trust and a director of NARTM, the National Association of Road Transport Museums, which represents the heritage transport movement to Government departments and agencies, regulators and funding bodies.

A broadcaster by trade, he hosts his own regional show on BBC radio stations across the south‐western quarter of the UK and Channel Islands.